The term twice exceptional, or 2e, refers to individuals recognized as both gifted and neurodivergent, meaning a student can be simultaneously very strong or gifted at one task and very weak or incapable at another. Because of this duality, a twice-exceptional person's strengths, weaknesses and struggles may go unnoticed or unsupported, since precocious traits such as hyperlexia are more apparent than subtler day-to-day difficulties, which can lead to disbelief, judgment and alienation. The term first appeared in James J. Gallagher's 1988 article A National Agenda for Educating Gifted Students, and describes a gifted individual, meaning someone with high ability compared to same-age peers, who also carries at least one neurodivergent trait, a cognitive profile that differs from what is considered neurotypical; an extreme form of twice exceptionality is savant syndrome.
Facts
Core ClaimA twice-exceptional (2e) student is simultaneously gifted at some tasks and significantly impaired at others, a duality that can leave both the giftedness and the difficulty unnoticed or unsupported. 1 FAQs
Why are twice-exceptional students so often missed or misunderstood?
Strengths and deficits mask each other, and formal identification needs a separate diagnosis for each.
In a twice-exceptional student the strengths can compensate for the deficits, while the deficits in turn make the strengths less apparent, so neither is seen clearly. Grades often alternate between high and low, even within one subject, and it can look as though the child is not trying. Formal identification requires a clinical diagnosis of each of at least two separate underlying exceptionalities, and because of the rarity of the profile, its varied presentations and the difficulty of obtaining adequate assessments, many twice-exceptional children and adults are never accurately identified.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Twice exceptional
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph
The term twice-exceptional or 2e refers to individuals acknowledged as gifted and neurodivergent. As a literal interpretation implies, it means a student is simultaneously very strong or gifted at some task but also very weak or incapable of another task.
History section
The term "twice-exceptional" first appeared in James J. Gallagher's 1988 article "National Agenda for Educating Gifted Students: Statement of Priorities".
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